First Light for SPECULOOS Southern Observatory’s Europa Telescope

This first light image from the Europa telescope at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) shows the heart of the Carina Nebula.

The SSO is installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the vast Atacama Desert, Chile, and consists of four 1-metre planet-hunting telescopes. The project’s telescopes are named after Jupiter’s Galilean moons, and are neighbours of ESO's Very Large Telescope and VISTA. SPECULOOS will focus on detecting Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs.